ppl. a. [f. prec.]
1. Mixed with some foreign substance; adulterated; not pure or genuine.
1607. Dekker, Wh. Babylon, Wks. 1873, II. 256. The drinke … they sweare Is wine sophisticated, that does runne Low on the lees of error.
1651. French, Distill., Pref. (1653), B 2. They … have brought a great Odium upon it by carrying about, and vending … their sophisticated oils, and salts.
1687. Montagu & Prior, Hind & Panth. Transv., 27. To give sophisticated Brewings vent.
1800. Henry, Epit. Chem. (1808), 390. The fraud is detected by adding alcohol to the sophisticated spirit.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., IV. 371. It is essential that water should be introduced, either pure or sophisticated.
2. Altered from, deprived of, primitive simplicity or naturalness.
1603. Florio, Montaigne (1632), 301. And truly, Philosophy is nothing else but a sophisticated poesie.
1638. Junius, Paint. Ancients, 119. The sophisticated Art … drew still the eyes and minds of unadvised spectators.
1684. Burnet, trans. More’s Utopia (1716), 118. Among those who pursue these sophisticated Pleasures, they reckon those … who think themselves really the better for having fine Clothes.
1782. V. Knox, Ess., vii. 33. He is … pursuing all the sophisticated joys, which succeed to supply the place where Nature is relinquished.
1825. Scott, Talism., x. All this internal chain of feudal dependence is artificial and sophisticated.
1871. L. Stephen, Playgr. Eur. (1894), i. 7. The mountains … are a standing protest against the sophisticated modern taste.
transf. a. 1652. Brome, Queen & Concubine, III. iii. Where the swoln Courts sophisticated Breath Did but disease my Blood.
3. Falsified in a greater or less degree; not plain, honest or straightforward.
1672. Dryden, Assignation, V. iv. I love not a sophisticated truth, With an allay of lye in’t.
a. 1806. Horsley, Serm. (1811), 105. Who resist the truth by argument, or … explain it away by sophisticated interpretations.
1835. I. Taylor, Spir. Despot., vii. 329. After ingenious and sophisticated criticism has done its utmost.
1861. Holland, Less. Life, v. 69. Our truths are half truths, or exaggerated truths or sophisticated truths.
